Urban Social Movements and Their Struggles Towards the
‘Right to the City’.
Protest and Creativity as Determinant Features of Democratic Cities in
Germany and Brazil.
Dissertation
zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades doctor rerum naturalium (Dr. rer. nat.)
vorgelegt dem Rat der Chemisch-Geowissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Friedlich-Schiller-Universität Jena
von M. Sc. Hiram Souza Fernandes
Gutachter:
1. Prof. Dr. Benno Werlen, Lehrstuhl f. Sozialgeographie, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena 2. Prof. Dr. Wendel Henrique Baumgartner, Universidade Federal da Bahia - Brasilien
Das Hauptziel dieser Doktorarbeit ist es, die geographischen Konstruktionen von Subjekten und sozialen Akteuren, die zu Gruppen und Kollektiven gehören, in Bezug auf die Produktionsprozesse des urbanen Raums, zu verstehen. Diese Gruppen, die hier als urbane soziale Bewegungen verstanden werden, haben das Ziel, sich ein gerechtes und egalitäres städtisches Leben zu erkämpfen. Dieser Kampf wird hier durch die Idee des „Rechts auf Stadt“ repräsentiert. Dieses Konzept wurde erstmals von dem französischen Soziologen Henri Lefebvre nach den Ereignissen und Demonstrationen im Mai 1968 in mehreren europäischen Städten, die einen Meilenstein in der Geschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts dargestellt haben, ausgearbeitet. Diese Bewegungen suchten unter anderem nach Lösungen für die existenzielle Krise, die vor allem in städtischen Umgebungen herrschte und die das auf den Idealen des keynesianischen Staates basierende politisch-ökonomische System nicht mehr lösen konnte. Der Staat wurde zunehmend geschwächt und seine Unfähigkeit, die Probleme der Bevölkerung zu lösen, gibt der Marktwirtschaft – durch das Finanzkapital – die Macht, die Organisation der Gesellschaft zu verwalten und zu lenken. Hierin beginnt die Ära der Vorherrschaft des Kapitals, der Marktwirtschaft und damit der Privatinitiative, die von dem als Neoliberalismus bekannten Diskurs von Wohlstand und Freiheit getragen wird. Mit der fortschreitenden Entwicklung des Neoliberalismus sowie den Prozessen der Globalisierung und Urbanisierung verschärften sich die Probleme des urbanen Lebens. Segregation, Fragmentierung, Armut, Gewalt, Hoffnungslosigkeit und Hilflosigkeit bilden den lebensweltlichen Hintergrund für einen größeren Teil der Menschheit am Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts und in diesen frühen Jahren des 21. Jahrhunderts.
Urbane soziale Bewegungen waren in dieser Zeit der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts und Anfang des 21. Jahrhunderts immer in bemerkenswerter Weise präsent und konstituierten sich als unentbehrliche soziale Akteure bei der Gestaltung der Gesellschaft. Jedoch wurden diese sozialen Bewegungen in einigen regionalen Kontexten, wie Lateinamerika, und in jüngerer Zeit in Nordafrika, von diktatorischen Regimen brutal unterdrückt und gewaltsam bekämpft. Mit der Stagnation der Wirtschaft und der Unhaltbarkeit der existenziellen urbanen Krise, die über den Globus zog, begann der Neoliberalismus zu Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts zusammenzubrechen, wodurch die Rolle der sozialen Bewegungen in diesem Zusammenhang immer wichtiger wird. In Anbetracht der Tatsache, dass sowohl der Staat als auch die Marktwirtschaft es versäumt haben, die Gesellschaft zu führen, fordern diese urbanen sozialen Bewegungen nun die Kontrolle und das Management ihres eigenen Lebens und Schicksals zurück. Zu diesem Zweck mussten diese Bewegungen sich jedoch durch neue Taktiken, neue Strategien und die Anpassung alter Techniken an den Einsatz neuer Techniken neu erfinden. Dies ist daher der Kern dieser Forschung: die Rolle und die neuen Handlungsstrategien dieser Gruppen und sozialen Kollektive zu verstehen und darüber nachzudenken, wie der Stadtraum von diesen gesellschaftlichen Akteuren in der heutigen Welt produziert und konstruiert wird. Angesichts des wachsenden Einflusses von Globalisierungsprozessen auf die heutige Gesellschaft und ihrer Auswirkungen auf die lokale Ebene, werden diese Bewegungen in zwei unterschiedlichen urbanen Kontexten analysiert: die Städte Recife in Brasilien und Hamburg in Deutschland.
Introduction 1 1. “City” in theoretical perspectives. From the production of space to
the action centered geography making 13
1.1. Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space 15
1.1.1. Lefebvre’s tridimensional dialectic 16
1.1.2. The social production of space 20
1.1.3. Production of space: preliminary conclusive thoughts 28
1.2. Werlen’s action-centered theory of geography making 29
1.2.1. The constructivist approach 32
1.2.2. Action-centered social geography 34
1.2.3. Categories of action 38
1.2.4. The constitution of everyday regionalizations 41
1.3. Production of space and constitution of everyday regionalizations:
interim conclusions 44
2. From neoliberal cities to the right to the city:facets of the
urbanization process in times of globalization. 46
2.1. The neoliberal city: origin and historical approach 50 2.2. The close relationship between capitalist development and the
urbanization process 55
2.3. The role of globalization 65
2.4. Urban problems: consequences of the neoliberal urban development 75
2.4.1. The anemia of public spaces 76
2.4.2. The fetishization of the automobile 79
2.4.3. Violence, insecurity, and fear 81
2.5. Right to the city as an answer to the devastating crisis of urban life 84
2.6. “Rebel Cities” 91
2.7. Urbanization process: interim conclusions 94
3. Urban social movements: the actors towards an outline for the right
to the city 97
3.1. Social movements in times of the network digital age 103
3.2. The #occupy movement 106
4. Methodology 114
4.1. Qualitative social research 114
4.2. Methodological procedures, techniques, and tools 117
4.2.1. Direct observation 117
4.2.2. Qualitative-narrative interviews 118
4.3. Grounded theory: a method for interpretation of qualitative data 122
5. What About the right to the city in Recife? 126
5.1. Is Recife a “rebel city”? 129
5.2. The Actors Towards the right to the city in Recife 133 5.3. Theoretical analysis and empirical evidences of Recife’s rebelliousness 152
6. What About the right to the city in Hamburg? 162
6.1. Is Hamburg a “rebel city”? 164
6.2. The actors towards the right to the city in Hamburg 168 6.3. Theoretical analysis and empirical evidences of Hamburg’s
rebelliousness 183
Conclusion 191
Bibliography 198
List of interviews 212
From the earliest times of civilization, cities, towns, and other rudimentary forms of settlements have served various purposes, such as commerce, defense, stockpiling, and the centralization of power. Later, the industrial revolution—basically at the end of the eighteenth century—led to massive urbanization and the rise of new large cities. As new opportunities were generated in these cities—attracting a large number of migrants from rural communities—a new urban way of life that was directly linked to the industrial production was thus characterized. Therefore, the urbanization process involves a shift in which urbanization ceases to be primarily induced by industrialization, to become an inducer of a new reality, in which the phenomenon goes beyond the factory and the production process, to permeate life in its multiple dimensions. It is a shift that amplifies and surpasses the notion of industrial production, to a moment in which the reproduction of capitalist development takes place also in other spheres, such as the everyday life. Herein, the beginning of the phenomenon of the urbanization of the society is thus epitomized and is—in our contemporary times—already a reality, as more than 3.9 billion people1—something around 54% of the world population—are living in
urban areas today.
It is important to emphasize that the new aspects of the contemporary urbanization in times of the digital revolution reveal themselves as a complex socio-spatial problem, in which new themes are juxtaposed, or there is a deepening of existing issues, which overcomes/creates new contradictions that can be understood as an invitation to reflection. Hence, urbanization requires new explanatory content in the face of the breakthrough of cities, the implosion of urban centers, and radical changes in the new socio-spatial relations that inhabitants of cities establish with one another in the public space and in everyday life. This is what Benno Werlen (2017) refers to as “social relations of space” that are evident in the current and historical possibilities and impossibilities of the sociogeographical conditions of social coexistence. For Werlen, “social relations of space determine the modi operandi (for acting over distance), based on the corporeal social practices that constructed sociocultural realities can take place” (ibid. 49). Based on this amalgam of social relations of space, it is necessary to think of the urban phenomenon in its totality, that is, its mutual and dialectical relations with the globalization process and the capitalist development. Thus, the urbanization of society is also a possibility opened by the urbanization process itself, which tends to expand—spatially and socially—on the planet, producing specific kinds of space and ways of life marked by relations that tend to overlap relationships of traditional life forms. Therefore, the urban
1 United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2015). World
reality is an “unfinished” phenomenon in a constant process of production and at the same time geared towards the global.
The globalization process is, consequently, the most prominent expression of rapid changes of geographical living conditions with the ongoing digital revolution. On the one hand, globalization has brought and is bringing far-flung places and people into ever-closer contact: new kinds of communities and new forms of identity, human action, and therefore, of social-spatial relations are emerging at an accelerating pace. On the other hand, however, globalization imposes itself for a great part of humanity as an “industry of iniquities” (Santos 2015 [2000]) that is today characteristic of urban contexts. Poverty2, unemployment, and underemployment become chronic issues, and
consumerism is increasingly considered as a source of happiness (Easterlin 1974). Milton Santos (2015 [2000]), observes these two different approaches about the globalization processes: whilst he advocates against the view of the world as “they” made us see–– “the globalization as a fable”––he alternatively spreads around the critical approach that enables us to see the world as it really is: “the globalization as a perversity” (Santos 2015 [2000], p.19).3
Cities are the places in the contemporary world, where it is more obvious to identify some elements of the concepts of both above-mentioned perspectives of globalization. Paul Knox and Steven Pinch (2007) state that a notable effect of globalization is that it has led to the emergence of the so-called “global cities” (Sassen 1991). Saskia Sassen argues that the main feature of global cities is social polarization. Globalization as perversity speaks for itself when we think about urban social inequalities. Crowded subways, trams, and buses carrying workers on their way home during rush hour competing for space on the streets with armored SUVs with no more than, if at all, two passengers, are such a reliable portrait of (mega)cities nowadays. Knox and Pinch (2007), however, argue that although only a few cities in the world could claim the status of a global city as a command centrality in the world economy, as described by Sassen, there is a sense in which “all urban centers are now global for they are all affected by events and decisions outside of their boundaries” (Knox and Pinch 2007, p. 36). Furthermore, they are all engaged in a vehement competition between themselves to attract investment of capitals into their areas of influence in regard to the capitalist urban development.
In relation to the general problem constellation sketched above, which refers to everyday urban life issues in the context of a globalized world, I present this Ph.D. thesis which is focused on unveiling how urban subjects develop their strategies for a more democratic and egalitarian city. Besides being aligned with a problem that is becoming
2 According to the UN 2016 – The Sustainable Development Goals Report, around thirteen percent of the world
population is living under extreme poverty conditions in 2012. If considered separately, poverty remains widespread in sub-Saharan Africa, where more than forty percent of people having lived on less than $1.90 a day in 2012.
increasingly prominent in the social sciences, this research theme is also consonant with my personal aspirations and motivations to contribute to scientific research. The former President of Uruguay, Pepe Mujica, once claimed that “…you give up the fight by giving up the dream. Fighting, dreaming, being down on the ground and confronting reality: that’s what gives meaning to existence”.4 In this regard, one of my biggest ambitions is
to contribute––in the way I am able to––to the positive transformation of society, that is, to the reduction of social and economic inequality between people around the world. It may sound pretentious but the intentions and motivations of the present work are to contribute to the expansion of the intellectual and scientific production and the advances in social sciences that could––in any way––help to improve the conditions of our lives. Taking into account that cities emerged from the social and geographical concentration of surplus product––which makes the urbanization process a class phenomenon that influences the lives of more than the half of the world population––this work has its analysis focused on people’s life problems in urban areas.
David Harvey (2008) claims that since that they exist, cities arise from the social and geographic concentration of overproduction and, therefore, of capital surpluses. “Urbanization has always been a class phenomenon since surpluses are extracted from somewhere or somebody, while the control over their disbursement typically lies in a few hands” (Harvey 2008, p. 24). This is the general mechanism of capitalism, and in the case of urbanization processes, there is a more complex dynamic in performance. Capitalism is grounded, as Karl Marx (1867) reminds us, on the eternal cycle of the search of capital gains, which are reinvested to generate more capital gains and so on. Nevertheless, to achieve these profits, capitalists must generate a surplus of production. This means that capitalism is always generating overproduction that is demanded by the urbanization process. The opposite relation is also true. Capitalism needs urbanization processes to absorb overproduction that it never stops to generate. In such a way, an intimate connection arises between the development of capitalism and urbanization.
Hence, this intimate and bilateral relation between the capitalist processes of absorption of capital surpluses and the urbanization process in times of globalization can be considered as the root of a so-called devastating crisis of the everyday life in the city (Harvey 2012a, p.11). With these contributions, Harvey has been considered one of the most important names in the development of the Critical/Marxist Geography and has forged the concept and idea of the “neoliberal city.” The strong relation between cities and neoliberal policies are also for Jason Hackworth (2010) intrinsically connected, for he claims that “cities are the sites of both the acutest articulation of neoliberalism and its most acute opposition.” (Hackworth 2010, p. xii). The neoliberal urban development represents a strong facet of the globalization process nowadays. For a better comprehension about the elements behind the idea of the neoliberal city, however,
it is important to understand its historical development. Harvey (2008) points out that the emergence and the development of the neoliberal city are marked by the “urban revolutions,” considered as catapults for the expansion of the urbanization process under capitalism and their bilateral relation mentioned before.
The neoliberal city is characterized by the excessive commercialization of its public spaces and by the concentration of public investments of urban infrastructure on the middle class or high-standard neighborhoods. These are areas where capitalism finds fertile ground for its mechanism of survival and self-replication of absorption and production of capital surpluses through urbanization. This process, as it will be further discussed within this work, is repeated, reinventing itself over the time through the “urban revolutions.” Started in the mid-nineteenth century in Paris through what could be called the beginning of modern urbanization with Baron Haussmann’s5 Urban
Renovation, passing through the urban reforms of North-American cities initiated by the plans of New York’s most famous “urban planner”, Robert Moses6, until the
globalization of the economy of the 1970’s and the need for expansion of new consumer markets and cheaper labor forces founded mostly in Asia and Latin America. In our current days of neoliberal globalization, urbanization processes find their mechanism of absorption of capitalist overproduction, among other things, on the realization of Mega-Events such as the Summer Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup. A commonplace in the course of this historical process is the generation of inequalities, fragmentation and social polarization in urban space.
However, this intrinsic relation between capitalism and the processes of urbanization in times of globalization also generates cities’ probably most fascinating feature: their diversity and plurality that arise from human action. Cities are the place of diversified problems but also creative solutions; colors, sounds, smells, desires, and dreams. With such multiple ‘faces’, it is a big challenge to struggle and contribute for the reparation of urban problems, ensuring and fighting for a more humane, sustainable, and democratic city for all, made by and for the people, which would fulfill the notion of the “Right to the City.”
As well as some of basic human rights7, such as the right to liberty, the right to
equality, the right to water and sanitation, the right to education, the right to food and
5 Georges-Eugène Haussmann, commonly known as Baron Haussmann, the Prefect of the Seine
Department of France and Paris Urban Planner. He was chosen by Emperor Napoleon III to carry out a massive urban renewal program of new boulevards, parks, and public works that is commonly referred to as Haussmann’s renovation of Paris (Malet 1973).
6 Robert Moses was known as the “master builder” of mid-20th century New York City, Long Island,
Rockland County, and Westchester County. He is sometimes compared to Baron Haussmann of Second Empire Paris, and was one of the most polarizing figures in the history of urban development in the United States. His decisions favoring highways over public transit helped create the modern suburbs of Long Island and influenced a generation of engineers, architects, and urban planners who spread his philosophies across the nation despite his not having trained in those professions. (Berman 2000).
7 UN Declaration of Human Rights 1948. (available at:
the right to housing (just to mention some), the right to the city should have also be considered as a human right to struggle for. Taken from a broader perspective, the right to the city could encompass all these human rights mentioned above. It is justified by lived-in conditions of injustice in our experience of the contemporary city, generated by an unequal process of urbanization under capitalism in times of globalization. Particularly, the experience of the marginalized and oppressed, whose urban life events are far much bitterer and more uneven than for those living in more harmonious conditions in our late-modern capitalist society. In other words, the right to the city could be understood as the right to dignified urban life.
Since the 1990s, the right to the city has reached the status of a trending concept, idea, and slogan, not only throughout the academic fields of geography, sociology, and architecture/urbanism but also within urban social movements and political parties (mostly left-wing) and through the media channels and arts scene. The idea of the right to the city, which I consider as a milestone concerning the academic contribution in this field, was proposed by the French sociologist Henri Lefebvre, who released in 1968 one of his seminal works concerning the urban phenomena, “Le droit à la ville”—The right to the city. His work inspired important contributions in the field of Human Geography and Urban Sociology, not only through North-American tradition with Harvey (1973, 1985, 1998, 2008, and 2012a) but also in German-speaking countries with Holm (2011, 2014a, and 2014b), Schmid (2005) and Mullis (2014, 2015, and 2016) and in Latin America with the far-reaching contributions of Souza (2001, 2012, and 2015), Baumgartner (2009), Serpa (2005 and 2007), and Ciccolella (2010 and 2014).
This right is, according to Harvey (2012a), referring to the idea developed by Lefebvre, at the same time, a complaint and a demand. The complaint was an answer to the before mentioned existential pain of a devastating crisis of everyday life in the city. The demand was, actually, a command to face the crisis and to create an alternative urban life that would be less alienated, more meaningful and funnier, but also contradictory and dialectical, as well as open to the future, possibilities, struggles and human action (Harvey 2012a, p. 11). Lefebvre was profoundly sensible to all of that. That is why the notion of the right to the city has its influence on the idea of a psychogeography of the city and everyday life, molded by the movement of the Situationist International (ibid. 12). Demanding the right to the city is therefore equivalent to claim for some power of construction and decision concerning the processes of urbanization over the way that our cities are mainly produced and reproduced, which means with the participation of those individuals and social groups most affected by the crisis of everyday urban life. Furthermore, it is taken for granted that it must be realized through a radical and fundamental manner, because, at the core, the idea of the right to the city in our days proposes the confrontation against neoliberal market logics and the dominant way of the legitimacy of state action.
For this reason, Harvey (2012a) reinforces that the resurgence of the right to the city in the last decade does not have its roots in the intellectual legacy of Lefebvre––however important this legacy may be––or on any academic caprice or trend. Instead, it is much more rooted in the struggles and construction of the streets and neighborhoods by the urban social movements as a ‘yell for help’ and support of the oppressed in times of despair (ibid. 15). Herein urban social movements play a crucial role as main actors towards the right to the city and therefore to the constitution of the “rebel cities” (ibid.).
In this sense, I have designed the presented research in order to understand the ways in which urban social movements demand for the right to the city and fight for a democratic urban life––producing and reproducing social spatialities––in two different empirical urban contexts: the city of Recife in Brazil and the city of Hamburg in Germany. It is important at this point to emphasize that, on defining these empirical cases, I intend to overcome the dichotomous and traditional spatial-centered geographical analysis (north – south / developed country – emerging economy). I pursue, instead of that, a postmodern, dialectical, and liberating socio-geographical approach based on two different perspectives, namely the Lefebvre’s theory on the “production of space” (Lefebvre 1991a) and Benno Werlen’s theory focused on action as the starting point of geography making (Werlen 1993, 2000a, 2007, 2008, and 2010). Both perspectives acknowledge and understand human action as the central aspect of the geographic research and, therefore, of the production of space and the construction of social spatialities.
Hence, Recife and Hamburg were not arbitrarily chosen for this research based on a special spatial category. Recife and Hamburg are cities where social-spatial relations concerning urban development issues and its struggles are taking place outstandingly and characteristically, which make them exemplary cases of research in a context of a globalized entankert8 society. Relating to these processes, individuals and their
constructed social-spatial relations within groups produced and reproduced the urban space under the appeal for equanimity, equality, and democracy through processes of urbanization. In other words, an appeal for the right to the city.
Based on these aspects, the Research Question that guides the present work is: How do urban social movements produce and reproduce urban spaces and construct their social-spatial realities— through action—in the contexts in which they are inserted in order to fight for the right to the city?
The appeal for the right to the city achieved prominence in both cities in the last decades, even on mass media channels. In Hamburg, it was in the late 1980s with the squat at the Hafenstraße in the St. Pauli neighborhood, which is now known in local
8 Werlen’s german neologism “entankert” may refer to “dis-anchored” and has its influence on Anthony
Giddens’ idea of “Disembedding”: “the “lifting out” of social relations from local contexts of interaction and their restructuring across indefinite spans of time-space” (Giddens 1984, p. 21).
history as the “barricade days” (Schäfer 2004, p.39). At that time, the social agitation concerning urban issues started in Hamburg, which later, from 1995 until the beginning of the first decade of 21st century, influenced the struggles of the “Park Fiction” (ibid.). This social and activist fervor culminates with the creation of the network “Right to the city Hamburg” in 2009, that is still active nowadays.
In Recife, as well as in most Brazilian major cities, urban social movements in the 1980s were mainly focused on strictly political struggles such as the (re)democratization of the country after almost twenty-one years of military dictatorship, as those protests that were rooting for direct presidential elections. The first direct democratic presidential election happened for the first time in Brazil only in 1989. This may be one of the reasons why urban social movements which are directly engaged with urban issues and the right to the city found its biggest exponent only in 1997 with the creation of the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem-Teto––Homeless Workers Movement (MTST) (Brito et al. 2015). In Recife, however, it was only after the auction of the “Cais José Estelita”, acquired by a Real Estate Consortium in 2008, that the motto “Right to the City” got its space, culminating with the creation of the group “Direitos Urbanos” (Urban Rights) in 2012 (Rocha 2014 and 2015).
For this reason, it is possible to think of Hamburg and Recife as “rebel cities” (or at least, cities in which other “rebel cities” are constitutive parts inside of them), mostly because of the striking presence of urban social movements that are willing to (re)create, (re)construct and (re)design the city according to their collective wishes and not to the caprices of the power of capital. However, differences concerning their urbanization developments could not be ignored and are also of main importance to the present work. These differences were largely explored by Milton Santos in his writing “A urbanização desigual” (Unequal Urbanization)9 (2010), that was originally published in French in 1971;
Les villes du Tiers Monde: spécifité du phénomène urbain en pays sous-développés. As a Latin-American academician, Santos showed firmness to dismantle the reductionist view of the sectorial geography, and a dominant positivist colonial ideology that tried to convince that poverty of third-world countries would be barely a stage of history, by which the rich countries have already passed. In other words, Santos condemned the misconception of these theses that have intended to consider third-world urbanization as a simple and mechanical repetition of the processes in the current hegemonic centers by the time of their early industrialization.
Although Santos’ contribution with “Unequal Urbanization” concerning the distinctions between urbanization processes in developed and underdeveloped countries has extreme importance to the elaboration of a theory of a geographic knowledge through a postcolonial perspective, his argumentation is still strongly attached to the
9 This book was never officially published in English. “Unequal Urbanization” refers to a free translation
methodological precepts of traditional quantitative geography. Santos based his approach in a spatial comparison exclusively focused on quantitative statistic data analysis, which has less relevance for the present work. However, his thesis of differentiation of urbanization processes is still defended by me on the present contribution, for I am rooted on the argument proposed by Santos himself in a more critical oriented phase of the geography making on his academic path when he generated his globalization theories. As mentioned earlier, Santos (Santos 2015 [2000]) sees the globalization process as having two contrary facets: one as a fable and the other as perversity.10 This discernment unveils indeed the whole process of capitalist
development that generates the neoliberal city in its relation to the urbanization process. Neoliberal urbanization processes are in fact an outstanding feature of the two-faced globalization as a source of fragmentation of urban space.
In a practical sense, the urbanization processes that are going on in Recife nowadays do not correspond, under any circumstances, to a previous stage of Hamburg’s urbanization. Urban development in both cities in contemporary times passes through the same moment of the strong influence of market logic in a context of neoliberal globalization. This process, as already approached before, induces to the emergence of the “neoliberal city.” However, due to the two distinct aspects of the process of globalization highlighted by Santos (Santos 2015 [2000]) that operate in a historically distinct way in the processes of urbanization in different contexts, it seems more plausible to claim that there are different kinds of “neoliberal cities.” Fragmentation, polarization, and segregation processes are observed, therefore, in intra-urban local contexts, as well as in a global context.
Consequently, I expose the first, but still not the main thesis of this work: Regardless of the great historical differences between urbanization processes in Hamburg and Recife, both produced cities, which would be characteristically defined as neoliberal cities.
According to Harvey (2012a), this whole process of the constitution of the neoliberal cities could be called “urbanization of capital,” which presupposes the capacity of capitalist’s power to dominate the urban process. This includes not only the domination over the state apparatuses but also over whole populations (their lifestyles, cultural and political values). However, as emphasized by Harvey (2012a), complete control is almost impossible, since the city produced by this urban process––taken from a dialectical perspective––is also an important sphere of political, social, and class struggle. In this regard, the present work addresses its focus on this other perspective, rather than only the perspective of the Capital. It is the viewpoint of emancipatory possibilities of all of those who are struggling to gain their livelihood and reproduce their
10 Santos (Santos 2015 [2000]) actually speaks about three different facets of the globalization processes in
this work. Besides the views as a “fable” and as a “perversity”, he also worked on a view of the “world as it may possibly be: another globalization” (Santos 2015 [2000], p.5).
everyday lives in the context of this urban process. This is the point where urban social movements come to light.
Urban social movements emerge as main actors of resistance against the sources of the crisis of the everyday life in urban contexts that I exposed until now. The starting reference regarding the idea of social movements used within this work is the contribution of the French sociologist, Alain Touraine, who showed prime interest along his career in studying and writing extensively on the theory of social movements. Touraine’s work is based on a “sociology of action” in which he exposed his belief that society shapes its future through social action and its social struggles, and thus social movements gained importance in his analysis. For Touraine, “the idea of a social movement seeks to demonstrate the existence, within every societal type, of a central conflict […]” (Touraine 2000, p. 89). He concludes with the claim that the central conflict in our post-industrial society is waged by a “subject struggling against the triumph of the market and technology, on the one hand, and communitarian authoritarian powers, on the other” (ibid. 89)
To enrich this analysis, however, I will also address the contributions of Manuel Castells (1983b, 1996, and 2013) and Gesa Ziemer (2013 and 2016) that according to my evaluation could be complementary to the idea of social movement in contemporary times through many different aspects. Furthermore, the complexity and plurality of the social/joint action of groups and initiatives observed during the empirical research could, therefore, be better approached with the use of a broader theoretical spectrum. The Spanish sociologist, Manuel Castells, has largely contributed to the considerations about the network society (1996), thus, the emergence of networked social movements in times of the digital age (2013); Castells advanced the radical/critical approach on the social sciences claiming that no social change would be possible without social movements. Moreover, the German philosopher and urban researcher, Gesa Ziemer, brings to light the discussion and contributions of cultural theory and cultural praxis and the role of art, innovation, and creativity regarding the urban public sphere, participation, and urban collectivities. Her most recent works present the idea of complicity as a tool for the accomplishment of the ideals of creativity and innovation concerning groups and collectivities subversive’s agency in contemporary urban contexts and their behavior regarding the structures.
Having said that, the second and main thesis of this research is: Urban social movements––
through their different strategies and forms of action whilst struggling to the right to the city––represent active forms of resistance against the inequalities produced by neoliberal urbanization and, therefore, of production and reproduction of the urban space and construction of socio-spatial relations according to their ambitions.
As it could be inferred from the main thesis of this work, I refer simultaneously to the ideas of “production/reproduction of space” and “construction of social-spatial relations”. These ideas refer and guide two different sociological/geographical perspectives: on the one hand, Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space (Lefebvre, 1991a), and on the other hand, Werlen’s action-centered theory of the geography making (Werlen, 1993, 2000a, 2007, 2008, and 2010). Lefebvre’s theory is fundamental to understand the relation between capitalist development and the process of urbanization in times of globalization, which reveals the production of space in neoliberal cities, in which social movements are meaningful actors. In addition, Werlen’s perspective provides an understanding of the subjective constructions of social-spatial realities and, therefore, the constitution of everyday geographies. In other words, the construction of everyday socio-spatial realities, which were unveiled during the empirical research with the subjects belonging to the social movements. The construction of these socio-spatial realities through subject’s everyday practices and actions, constitute what Werlen (2007) would define as everyday regionalizations.
The structure of this work is as follows. First, the theoretical foundation mentioned above will be presented and further discussed. Along these lines, Chapter 1 is divided into two parts. The first one is dedicated to the discussion about the entanglements of the Lefebvrean theory of the production of space, its dialectical methodological-epistemological foundations, and its consequence’s research on urban issues. Consequently, the ‘Werlenean’ action-centered theory of geography making is presented in the second part in accordance with its constructivist methodological-epistemological basis and its importance to social-geographical research focused on urban phenomena.
Chapter 2 is dedicated to a further discussion about the urbanization process in a world ruled by the globalization of the economy under neoliberal policies. This chapter is also divided into two parts, which refer to the two faces of the capitalist urban phenomenon. The first part covers the complex web of relations between capitalist development and the processes of urbanization and globalization that underlies the emergence of neoliberal cities and its main characteristics and consequences to urban life. This topic is founded on the significant contribution of critical geographers, especially represented, but not limited to, by Harvey (1973, 1985, 1998, and 2001), Santos (2008, 2009, 2010, and 2015[2000]), Souza (2005 and 2008a), and Ciccollela (2010 and 2014). The second part refers to what I consider as a response to the degradation of urban life generated by the neoliberal urbanization processs, namely the right to the city and the struggles for a just city. The entanglements behind the idea of the right to the city are discussed both from a historical-academic perspective with the legacy of Lefebvre, but also from the current political perspective with its outcomes for contemporary democracy in the world, as approached mainly by Harvey (1973, 2008, and 2012a), Mullis (2013b, 2014, and 2015), and Holm (2011, 2013, and 2014a).
In Chapter 3 I will discuss the development of the concept and idea of social movements as main actors towards the right to the city, so that it enables further exploration of its entanglements concerning the research topic. Relevant in this regard, are the network of social movements in the digital age (Castells 1996 and 2013), the organizational features of urban social movements, and the idea of complicity elaborated by Zimmer (2013), and the protest movements under the motto “occupy”. These movements are symbolic of urban social movements in contemporary times, which carry with them fundamental characteristics of complicity and the use of internet tools such as social networks.
In the following Chapter 4, the methodology is presented and developed in consonance with the theoretical features presented above and sensible to design a meaningful analysis of strategies of action of urban social movements in the complex web of relations between neoliberal urban development and the right to the city. The empirical research of these phenomena requires methodological procedures that can carefully collect and analyze subjects’ subtle strategies without diluting the collection of data with socially desirable explanations, putting subjects under pressure, or narrowing down the analysis. Accordingly, the choice of qualitative research techniques and tools will be presented and discussed. These techniques are namely the direct observation, qualitative/narrative interviews and the theoretical coding based on the grounded theory of Barney Glaser & Anselm Strauss (1967).
Chapters 5 and 6 are dedicated to the analysis and discussion of the empirical research results of the (re)production of urban space through social movements’ strategies of action and their construction of realities towards the right to the city in Recife (Chapter 5) and Hamburg (Chapter 6). These chapters are then followed by the conclusion and final considerations of this research.
Finally, I would like to point out that according to the intentions of this scientific work, I have taken theoretical and methodological decisions which I believe to be the most adequate for the understanding of the research problem. I have chosen an approach that overlaps different theoretical and methodological perspectives and also proposed an equitable dialogue between the knowledge productions from the global north and the global south. Likewise, I would like to mention that I believe that intellectual and scientific production needs to become more popular and more accessible to as many people as possible. In this way, the present work was not only written for the evaluation committee and libraries shelves, but mainly for social actors and urban subjects, that like the subjects referred in this research, are struggling all over the world for an honest and equal life in the cities. That denotes the reasoning for the use of personal, subjective, and simple language will be recurrent during this work. This is an attempt at filling a gap in my academic education which seeks to encourage the production of high-quality Ph.D. theses that are also accessible to students at the
beginning of their academic lives. It can be a very complicated task, however, since the hard way sometimes is the most pleasurable, I choose for pleasure while writing, and I hope that this initiative meets and responds to the readers’ expectations.
1.
“City” in theoretical perspectives. From the production of space
to the action centered geography making
Social Geography as a scientific discipline has its core on the investigation of the relationship between society and space. According to Werlen (2008), there are two main questions, where the answers contain this central idea: “How are societies spatially organized? What role does space play for social coexistence?”11 (Werlen 2008, p.11).
Taking into consideration the changes in national territories and borders, the creation of regional and economic blocks with a single currency, or even the most diverse separatist and nationalist movements of the last thirty years, it is easy to obtain an idea of how profound the political significance to the relations between society and space is. In fact, the action field of Social Geography is directly linked to a political dimension. However, as Werlen reminds, “the relationship between space and society is not only relevant to the ‘big’ politics, but it is also significant for the everyday practice of all subjects. In general, one can assume that spatial and social matters are related to most human activities”12 (ibid. 12). Werlen reinforces that, on the one hand, this manifests itself
through the fact that the visual images of landscapes are to some extent an expression of people’s ways of life. On the other hand, however, the possibilities of how subjects can fulfill their activities in a certain place are often tied and bounded to the spatial conditions.
That is why it can be affirmed that the perspectives of the social-geographic research on the relationship between society and space are as diverse and numerous as the methodological and theoretical approaches. Werlen believes that this situation is a crucial feature of science when he claims that there is no “last” certainty and no definitive and irrefutable knowledge, especially on social and human sciences. “All knowledge is ultimately an assumption. Thereon, the internal and external demands of science are integrated”13 (ibid. 15). Werlen (2008) argues that if the doubt-suspicion aspect of the
scientific knowledge is recognized, it is easy to acknowledge that the diversity of methods and perspectives is not only necessary but also helpful. He justifies this claim with two reasons: first of all, that the mutual challenge of different conjectures could only be conducive to sharpening the argument and the rigor of the examination. Secondly, “the diversity of theoretical perspectives for better penetration and comprehension of a
11 „Wie sind Gesellschaften in räumlicher Hinsicht organisiert? Welche Rolle spielt der Raum für das
gesellschaftliche Zusammenleben?“ (Werlen 2008, S. 11)
12 „Das Verhältnis von Raum und Gesellschaft ist jedoch nicht nur für die >>große<< Politik relevant. Es
ist für die alltägliche Praxis aller Subjekte bedeutsam. Man kann ganz allgemein davon ausgehen, dass Räumliches und Gesellschaftliches für die meisten Tätigkeiten zusammenhängen“ (Werlen 2008, S. 12)
13 „Alles Wissen ist letztlich Vermutungswissen. Darauf sind sowohl die externen als auch die internen
scientific problem is just as useful as taking different perspectives when getting to know an object”14 (ibid. 15).
Although social-geographic analysis could profit from all these ‘relativizations’ of scientific and disciplinary claims, a methodological arbitrariness does not have a ‘free-pass’ among the rules of scientific good-practices. Firstly, because this choice of methods and means of research always depends on what the research is concerned with and on which aspects of reality one wishes to obtain more accurate information. Consequently, to achieve comprehensible and verifiable scientific results, it is necessary that certain scientific rules must be followed. “The postulation of a variety of perspectives should, therefore, not be confused with the assumption of the arbitrariness of the research methods”15 (Werlen, 2008 p.17). It is exactly the opposite, as postulates Werlen:
“diversity can only be meaningful if the most accurate methodological rigor as possible is practiced within different approaches”16 (ibid.). Thus, diversity of perspectives and
methodological rigor do not exclude each other. They are two levels of the scientific work.
The social-geographical realities can be researched and analyzed from different points of view and perspectives from which they were produced. The present research, as already mentioned, addresses two different levels/perspectives of social-geographic realities that will be analyzed in agreement with their respective theories. Foremost, the more general perspective, to investigate the historical development on global and local scales of urbanization processes in consonance with the Lefebvrean theory of the production of space. The second perspective concerns the subjective and everyday construction of spatial realities of the subjects involved with urban social movements and their ways of relating to the processes of urbanization. This perspective refers to the Werlenean theory of the geography-making centered in action. The next sections of this chapter refer to further discussions concerning both theories.
14 „Die Vielfalt fachtheoretischer Perspektiven ist einer besseren Durchdringung eines Problemfeldes
ebenso förderlich, wie die Einnahme verschiedener Blickwinkel beim Kennenlernen eines Gegenstandes“ (Werlen 2008, S. 15)
15 „Die Postulierung einer Perspektivenvielfalt ist folglich nicht mit der Annahme der Beliebgkeit der
Forschungsweisen zu verwechseln“ (Werlen 2008, S. 17)
16 „Vielfalt kann nur dann sinnvoll sein, wenn innerhalb der vershiedenen Ansätze eine möglichst große
1.1.
Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space
More than four decades ago, Henri Lefebvre designed a theory of the production of space that received an outstanding interpretation but remained unrecognized for a long period of time and, therefore, its effect was only fully unfolded in recent years. Christian Schmid (2005, p. 9) claims that the significance of this theory lies in the fact that it systematically integrates the categories of city and space into a comprehensive social theory that makes it possible to describe, grasp, and understand spatial processes and phenomena at all scale levels. From the subjective-individual level to the level of the city and, finally, to the global analysis. According to Schmid (2005, p.10), Lefebvre’s theory is part of a highly ambitious and complex metaphilosophical project, which he pursued and was constantly evolving for more than a half of a century. Moreover, the theory of the production of space is also embedded in a contemporary discussion that is extremely rich and fruitful, namely the debate known as the crisis of the city. This term refers to the loss of everyday worldly life-quality associated with the spread of urban areas and the functional logic of post-war urban planning (ibid.).
Lefebvre’s approach to this issue was strongly influenced by his studies of everyday life, which he started after the Second World War and continued for decades almost until the end of his life. “In the course of these studies, he came across a phenomenon that became more and more important over the years: the urbanization processes”17 (Schmid
2005, p. 11). In the turbulent year of 1968, Lefebvre presented Le Droit à la Ville, his first theoretical essay on urban crisis, in which he focused on the search for a new theory of the city. The unfolding of these efforts is the elaboration of the appeal for the Right to the city, which is to understand as a right to access the possibilities and opportunities of the city, that is, the right to a renewed urbanity.
Later in 1970, Lefebvre developed the work in which his approaches were for the first time directed to a general theory of urban society. In La révolution urbaine, his major work concerning the city and urban issues, he outlined the radical thesis of the complete urbanization of society. This involved a fundamental change of perspective, in other words, a reorientation of his analysis. Thus, the focus shifts from the object city to the process of urbanization and the emergence of an urban society.
The analysis of urban society and urbanization processes raised the question of the connection between urban problems and the development of society as a whole. To shed light on this, Lefebvre changed once again the level of his analysis and placed the urbanization process in the context of the general social theory category of space (Schmid 2005, p. 11). This led to the formulation of the theses that compose Lefebvre’s
17 „Im Verlauf dieser Studien stiess er auf ein Phänomen, das ihn in der Folge immer stärker beschäftigen
probably major book, and one of his most complex and difficult works, namely La production de l’espace, released in 1974; herein, he designed a comprehensive theory of the social production of space.
However, before going deeper into the discussion and analysis of the Lefebvrean theory, it is necessary to revise the epistemological-methodological background that supports Lefebvre for the construction of the bases of his theory. In this respect, Lefebvre finds its influence, mainly, in his readings of the German dialectic that culminated in the postulation of his tridimensional dialectic.
1.1.1. Lefebvre’s tridimensional dialectic
The origin of the dialectical thinking relies on the Greeks. According to Kalina Silva and Maciel Silva (2005), the Dialogues of Plato already comprehends the dialectic argumentative form. “The Greek definition of the term dialektike (tekhne) refers to the discussion; the art of argumentation”18 (Silva and Silva 2005, p. 97). In the platonic
dialogues, two discussants set out a reasoning about a particular theme, and each argued so as to transcend the mere opinion (imagination and belief) to ascend to the true knowledge of reality (episteme). This platonic concept of dialectic, as claimed by Silva and Silva (2005), which is almost confused with discussion, is, according to Plato, a method, a way to reach Ideas or Perfect Forms; the true reality
Eliseu Spósito (2004) also retraces the Greek philosophy on his understanding about the dialectics. “The dialectical method is that which proceeds through the refutation of common-sense opinions taking them to the level of contradictions, so that it would be possible to reach the truth, product of reason”19 (Spósito 2004, p. 39). He proceeds and
mentions Plato, for whom the dialectic is the “[…] process through which the soul rises along the steps of sensible appearances towards intelligible realities or ideas”20 (ibid.). As
stated by Spósito, the dialectic is also an instrument of searching the truth, a scientific pedagogy of the dialogue.
The dialectical thinking, after centuries of disuse, was rescued by German philosophy, especially by Hegel at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Philosopher of Idealism, Hegel believed that this thought based on the principles of the thesis-antithesis-synthesis was the maximum form of reaching the absolute. Silva and Silva (2005) claim that for Hegel, every cosmic structure was dialectical. That is, it involved the principle of contradiction. Although he believed that reality was rational, this rationality was not static, but dynamic. Therefore, the Hegelian view is that the dialectical method is the
18 “A própria definição grega do termo dialektike (tekhne) é discussão, arte de argumentar e discutir” (Silva
and Silva 2005
19 “O método dialético é aquele que procede pela refutação das opiniões do senso comum, levando-as à
contradição, para chegar então à verdade, fruto da razão” (Spósito 2004, p. 39)
20 “[…] processo pelo qual a alma se eleva, por degraus, das aparências sensíveis às realidades inteligíveis ou
only one capable of favoring the understanding of a reality that is constantly changing, in movement. The idea of the movement is even central to Hegel. Manfred Buhr and Alfred Kosing (1982) reminds that the Hegelian dialectic represents the self-movement of the world (which, however, he idealistically considers as the manifestation of the idea of absolute) and at the same time “the true method of knowing and thinking, because it corresponds to the nature of the idea of the absolute itself”21 (Buhr and Kosing 1982, p.
71).
Hegel has resumed the natural movement of thought in research and discussion. It is through the dialectical thinking that researchers confront opinions, points of view, different aspects of the problem, opposites and contradictions and try to elevate themselves to a broader, more comprehensive point of view. In a previous research, I approached Hegelian dialectics, whereas affirming that if the Real is in movement, our thought must also have a behavior dictated by the movement, the historicity and the contradictions inherent in human phenomena. “If the Real is contradictory, it is necessary that our thought must be precisely the conscious thought of contradiction”22
(Fernandes 2012, p.17).
Hegelian and Greek philosophy thoughts on dialectics are, however, primary ideas that nowadays are broadly understood as general principles of the scientific doing and therefore, it would not be enough to build an adequate methodological basis of a theory to investigate the development of urbanization processes. Karl Marx, however, based on his readings on Hegel, made his critics and exposed the limits of Hegelian idealism on the interpretations of transformations processes in the world, such as urbanization. Marx claims that although Hegel was one of the first philosophers to clarify the general ideas regarding the movement and the changing aspect of human phenomena, of the world, and of science itself, he frequently used the term “dialectic method” as a synonym of “scientific method” (Sposito 2004, p. 44). Marx’s critique is, therefore, that whereas for Hegel the mind determines the unfolding of people’s freedom, for Marx it is the material
life. Marx proposes a dialectic in connection with the matter, formulating the dialectical materialism. According to the dialectical materialism, since the material conditions of existence (economics) are the true reason of human actions, dialectic would be the method for perceiving and overcoming the social and historical contradictions common to various human societies throughout history (Buhr and Kosing 1982). Silva and Silva (2005) point out that Marx’s thinking consists of starting from the real (the real man and his contradictions), and not from ideas or the mind, as Hegel did. According to dialectical materialism, the historical development of humanity occurs through processes of change that imply contradictions.
21 „Die Dialektik ist die Selbstbewegung der Welt und zugleich die wahre Erkenntnismethode und
Denkweise, weil sie dem Wesen der absoluten Idee selbst entspricht“ (Buhr and Kosing 1982. S. 71)
22 “Se o real é contraditório, é necessário que o nosso pensamento seja precisamente o pensamento
The historical perspective is also a central aspect of the development of Marxist dialectic. For Marx, the dialectical thinking necessarily understands the notion of movement in history, and this Marxist conception of history is what will enable the elaboration of concepts such as commodity, capital accumulation, and surplus value, for example. This allowed the understanding of a more complex and better-elaborated reading of capitalism as a historically produced mode of production. The confluence of the idea of movement in history on Marx’s analysis of the importance and centrality of material life gives rise to the methodological approach called Dialectical and Historical Materialism. The dialectic––based on a historical and materialist approach––emphasizes the contradictions and changes, which constitutes an interpretation of reality, which was for a long time the most adequate to visualize and understand the conflicts and antagonistic relations existing in history (masters vs. slaves, capitalists vs. proletarians).
In the late modern capitalist society, however, in which conflicts and contradictions are not marked by dichotomic relations any longer, the traditional Marxist historical and materialist dialectic may present itself as an obsolete or not sufficient method for the apprehension of contemporary socio-spatial phenomena in its wide variety. Henri Lefebvre, however, in the course of his vast academic production––especially on his investigations about the production of space, the everyday life, and the urban phenomenon––made important developments in the dialectics methodological theory that became more suitable for the plurality and complexity of contemporary human phenomena. Schmid (2005, 2012a) claims that Lefebvre worked on a highly original version of the dialectic thinking based on his continuous critical engagement with Hegel, Marx, and also Nietzsche. The three German philosophers were by far the most influential in Lefebvre’s theory. Glauber Xavier (2013) also advances on this way and claims that “aiming the comprehension of the primacy of dialectics, Lefebvre conducts readings about Nietzsche’s thoughts and adds the notion of becoming in his works to understand human progress in society, their daily struggles, and resistance”23 (Xavier
2013, p. 1)
Lefebvre is an author that allied theory and praxis in his academic production. He established ideas on the theoretical field but never stopped participating in practical actions, which were arising from such theoretical reflections. His participation in the 1968 Situationist International movement is a clear example of it. The confluence of theory and praxis engaged Lefebvre against scientific and political dogmatism, especially within the French communist party. This may be the reason why he gained a great number of political enemies, but also antagonists in the scientific world, especially among philosophers, sociologists, and historians (Soto 2013, p. 25). The creativity of Lefebvrean thinking is part of the trend of Marxist studies, characteristic among social sciences of the 1970’s, wherefore, Lefebvre is sometimes considered as a neomarxist philosopher.
23 “Com o propósito de apreender o primado dos processos na dialética, Lefebvre conduz leituras a partir
do pensamento de Nietzsche e acrescenta a nocao do devir em seus trabalhos a fim de melhor compreender o progresso humano na sociedade, seus embates, suas resistências cotidianas” (Xavier 2013, p. 1).
Such denomination comes from the inventiveness in which Lefebvre inserts the most varied propositions about the world, especially from what he calls the dialectic of the triad. Lefebvre’s interpretations of the concept of space, for example, overcome the notion of something empty, in its simple geometric nature, and intend to surpass the field of the superstructure, that is, his ideas transcend the “strict Marxist tradition” (Lefebvre 2013).
Ultimately, through his adoption of “Germanic dialectics”, Lefebvre reaches a renewed three-dimensional dialectic which has no parallel in philosophy and the history of knowledge (Schmid 2012a). Lefebvre himself describes his dialectic as a radical critic of Hegel based on the social practice of Marx and the art of Nietzsche (Lefebvre 1991a, p. 406). This Nietzschean influence could be better understood if it is assumed that the fundamental dialectical figure on Lefebvre’s work could be comprehended as the contradiction between social thinking and social action when strengthened by the third factor, the creative and poetic act. Schmid (2005, 2012a) explains Lefebvrean dialectic as having three postulated terms. Each which can be understood as a thesis, and each one refers to both others and would remain as a mere abstraction without them. (Schmid 2012a, p. 95). This triadic figure does not end as a synthesis as postulated by Hegel, but it links three moments that remain distinct between each other, without the reconciliation of them in a synthesis: “three moments that coexist in interaction, conflicts, or alliances” (Lefebvre 2004, p. 12).
Thus, the three terms or moments assume equal importance and each of them takes a similar position in their relation to the others, and a new and tridimensional (or triadic) version of the dialectic method emerges. Practically, the three moments can be described as follows: the first moment in which the phenomenon is observed, apprehended and described. The considerations of the ephemeral, the subtle, the detail are not only pertinent but important to the phenomenon. In special regard to the present work, the apprehension of urbanization and the meaning of urban everyday life lie at this moment, when the characteristic language, symbols, and signs of the urbanization process are perceived, apprehended, and put into reflection. The second moment consists in the determination of the facts on historical time. This means for the present research, the observation of how different aspects of the urbanization materialize, persist, or disappear. In other words, to observe in what circumstances these phenomena rise, remain or are absent in the urban space. The third moment is the historical-genetic progression. It refers to the understanding of the once dated modifications made by further development (internal or external) to the structure in question, and by its subordination to the overall structures. Lefebvre tries, therefore, to return to the current situation described at the beginning; to rediscover the present, but with it elucidated and understood: explained (Lefebvre 1975).
1.1.2. The social production of space
As state by Schmid (2005, p. 14), four contextual aspects, in particular, must be considered to understand Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space. Firstly, the fact that Lefebvre lived in a specific urban situation in Paris with its extraordinary intellectual atmosphere, in which he became involved with the Situationist International movement, especially in the events of May 1968 in France. His theoretical position in the field of theory of science is decisively influenced by these lifeworld and action/praxis-oriented experiences, which appear in many forms in almost all of his texts. Therefore, these experiences can not just easily be converted to the situation of the “post-Fordist” metropolises of contemporaneity. Without considering these experiences, many of Lefebvre’s concepts would remain incomprehensible.
Secondly, the epistemological and methodological context of Lefebvre’s work, as previously discussed, needs to be considered thoroughly and could not be neglected. In his critical readings through western philosophy, he has exposed the most diverse theoretical elements and included them in critical reflections in his writings, from the Greek philosophy on the French structuralism to the existential philosophy of Heidegger (Schmid 2005, p.15). Essentially, however, his theory is founded upon two sources: on the one hand, some elements of the theory of the production of space are based on the precepts of the French phenomenology of the 20th century, especially the works of
Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Gaston Bachelard. On the other hand, and most importantly, however, are the influences of what can be called “the German dialectic”, based on the most complex, controversial, dazzling, and therefore, Lefebvre’s most appreciated and quoted authors: Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche. Consequently, as already approached in the previous section, Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space is permeated by a “classical” historical dialectic and a new, three-dimensional dialectic of the simultaneity. As already mentioned, the importance of the Lefebvrean conception of the dialectic as a triad arises from the inventiveness in which Lefebvre inserts the most varied propositions about the world. Lefebvre has made this by articulating three elements such as society, time and space, and articulating the two opposing elements of the dialectical pair and a third resultant element, which is not completely done and remains as a third possibility.
The third aspect is that due to his loyalty to the dialectical approach, Lefebvre developed his theoretical concepts in close interaction with empiricism, not in the sense of classical deduction but of dialectical transduction (Schmid 2005, p. 15). He often introduced them as approximations, as “strategic hypotheses whose scope he explored in the course of the investigation”24 (ibid.). Accordingly, his terminology is also in a
continuous dialectical movement––it has, so to speak, a flowing structure. This structure
24 „[...]”strategische Hypothesen, deren Reichweite und Geltungsbereiche er im Verlauf der Untersuchung
of the dialectic of the triad based in Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche contains the basis of the social production of space. That is, according to Lefebvre (1991a, p. 20), the whole space, mental, physical and social, is tragically understood. He claims that historical time for Hegel engenders the space where it extends and on which the state commands. Hence, Hegelian space is the product and residue of historical time. Nietzschean space, which has nothing to do with the Hegelian, is the “theatre of the universal tragedy, as the cyclical, repetitious space” (Lefebvre 1991a, p. 22). This, in turn, cannot be compared to the Marxist space, characterized by “historicity driven forward by the forces of production and adequately (to be optimistic) oriented by industrial, proletarian, and revolutionary rationality” (Lefebvre 1991a, p. 22-23).
Finally, the fourth contextual aspect concerns the linguistic, which is also pertinent to Lefebvrean theory. Schmid (2005, p. 16) even refers to that as Lefebvre’s “metaphilosophical meditations.” He argues that almost every reading of Lefebvrean work, conveys it, first and foremost, as a “reading experience,” which is extraordinary in science. Lefebvre’s texts “offer the sensual experience of an inspiring and enjoyable reading with rich undertones and overtones, which often tell something quite different from what the logical analysis supposes”25 (ibid.). What is striking is the fact that
Lefebvre developed his own theory of language (Lefebvre 1966). A kind of three-dimensional construction from Nietzsche’s poetics; after all, in Lefebvre’s conception, Nietzsche could expose the problem of language by starting from the spoken word and not from a model. Thus, connecting, since the beginning, meaning with value and knowledge with power (Schmid 2012a, p. 97). Consequently, Lefebvre (1991a, p. 99) refers to metonymy and metaphor as well-known concepts, which he borrows from linguistics. As claimed by Araujo (2015, p. 102), Lefebvre points out that it is not only a matter of words but of space and spatial practice, where a deep examination of the relations between space and language became necessary.
Having presented these pertinent aspects of Lefebvre’s work, one can then understand why according to him, the social process of the production of space can be examined regarding three dimensions which are dialectically related to each another. These dimensions are the perceived (le perçu), the conceived (le conçu), and the lived (le vécu). Taking the spatial aspect into consideration, it refers respectively to spatial practices,
representations of space and spaces of representation. This double triad of dialectical concepts lies at the core of the theory of the production of space, and nowadays, remains the source for many extensive debates and speculations.
It is then necessary to mention that Lefebvre’s theory is a spatio-temporal social theory. In other words, “a general scheme that can be represented as the analytic model
25 „Seine Texte bieten das sinnliche Erlebnis einer inspierierenden und vergnüglichen Lektüre mit reichen
Unter- und Obertönen, die oft etwas ganz anderes erzählen als die logische Analyse zu erkennen vermeint“ (Schmid 2005, p. 16).
of the social production of space and time, which consists of three central categories”26
(Schmid 2005, p. 21). The first category sets-up the space-time dimensions of social reality, namely, the production of material conditions, the production of knowledge, and the production of meanings. The second category sets-up the spatio-temporal levels of social reality. Again, they follow a threefold division into a global level or distant order––the state, an individual level or near order (everyday life)––and an intermediary and mediating level, the city. Finally, the third category, the spatio-temporal configurations of social reality, refer to the complexity and temporality of the production of society. They designate the social production of space over time in relatively stable ways. It is important at this point to emphasize that all the spatio-temporal categories of social reality interrelate simultaneously and dialectically with each other and with the spatial dimensions that constitute the core of the theory: perceived, conceived, and lived.
Taking into consideration that Lefebvre characterizes space as being socially produced, it is important to discuss the concept of space on Lefebvre’s thought before going deeper into the discussion of the spatial dimensions of Lefebvrian theory mentioned above. He argues that the academic conceptions of space were confusing and paradoxical, in which it was concerned as an elementary “category” among others. He further adds that the sciences dealt with space as reified and divided according to simplifying methodological postulates: the geographic, the sociological, and the historical. From here he claims that space can no longer be formulated as passive, empty, or as like other “goods”, having no ot